... somehow I think I know the answer to that question ... May of 2005 was about the time when Google cracked down on all of the Spam generated websites where people were using programs like Traffic Equalizer to build hundreds or thousands of websites ...
One of the moderators replied to you with a brief note that the "system" in the Guru's report.. he is actually right ... if you still have the *******, ***** issue from ***** 2005 (it comes free with all new subscriptions), you will find an orange page inserted into it titled "How To Build A Virtual Real Estate Empire" ...
... of course, Step 6 says "Use SEO friendly 'page creation' software to quicly create hundreds of pages for your new web site. [...] These software programs can create a large number of pages for you and can start bringing in some free search engine traffic almost immediately." ..... I think we all know that tactic of creating spam websites no longer works. But it is what launched many of the current "gurus" ... Once you have already developed a habit and routine, creating niche topic websites with a goal of monetizing them via Adsense or various affiliate programs can be relatively easy ... the hard part and most time consuming part is getting the first few done and figuring out the "how to" of each step ...
The second hardest part is the discipline to actually sit down and "do it" ... it is always more fun to read the forums and learn the latest and greatest "tip" but that does not make us any money ...
I found myself building websites just fine ... but where I got "stuck" was on writing the content after the first three pages (you don't want to know how many three page websites I still have - it is NOT funny). And like it or not, building links is a painful and boring process ... so here I was ... lots of great ideas, even a few real websites up and running ... it was more fun to read internet marketing forums than it was to sit down and do the hard work ...
And I don't think I was much different than most people ... other than perhaps I had actually gotten around to building at least a few websites ... this is where most people get stuck ... or they don't see instant results and thus get discouraged or distracted by the next latest and greatest internet marketing hype ...
But a little 3 page website with Adsense on it and no links or virtually no links just isn't going to make any significant money (if any at all) ...
I try to build five websites at a time ... one each week for five weeks ... all around a central theme ...
The first website is what I call the Master Niche Topic Website .. a lot of people will call it the Money website ... in most cases, this is the only website that I will actively continue to develop over time ... when I choose the Keyword topic for this website, I will also take my four next best related topics, make sure I have a category or page written for each of these topics ... and I will also use these four topics/keywords for my next four websites ... for example, I am starting work on a new Dodge Challenger car website (new Dodge Model to be released in 2008 which really means it hits the show room floors next fall) ...
The next four websites are what I call Niche Feeder Topic Websites ... they are designed to be very loosely related topics to the keyword topic of my main website. Now they may not be exactly related but close ... the Challenger is a muscle car ... so I will do four related topic websites on Muscle Car aftermarket parts (lots of nice adsense ads and affiliate programs here) and various other related topics ... each of these four niche topic websites will link to the homepage of my Money website and to one or more inside pages as long as I can include a link "inside" the text of an article ...
I then use the keyword concepts above to fill out the Master Niche Topic Worksheet, and four Niche Feeder Worksheets ...
Master Niche Topic Website 1 ... I follow the checklist for the Master Niche Topic Worksheet and build my first website ... and each week after that, I simply do the follow up work that is necessary for this website like posting a couple comments to some automotive blogs and posting some links to various link directories ... after six weeks I briefly (note I said briefly) look at my logs and do a quick optimization of the titles and keywords on the three pages that got the most clicks from Adsense. Note that this might very well be the only three pages that got clicks - after all, the website is really new and not receiving a lot of traffic. Usually I have at least 10 keywords that people have used to find the website ... I take these 10 keywords and write 10 new articles (we know these 10 keywords are actually working right?) The best article I have or the best keyword I have, I will take one article and totally re-write it and use that topic (that we know people are actually searching for) and submit it to one or more article directories.
This is where I think I do things differently than most people - I perfer to submit an article about a topic/keyword that searchers have decided is important, not an article about a topic/keyword that *I* thought was important. What I think is important really doesn't matter, its what searchers/traffic thinks is important that matters. The other 9 articles (that are based on the keywords that people actually searched for and found me) are loaded into the site to auto-post. I personally prefer to use WordPress and a customized theme for my Master Niche Topic Website because it makes it really easy to load articles to automatically post ...
Niche Feeder Websites #2-5 ... for each of the next four weeks, I follow the Niche Feeder Worksheets for the four other websites/topics/keywords I selected. Most of these websites only have 5-10 articles on them and I usually have no expectation that I will ever do anything significant to update them ... and each week after each are built I take a little time to build links. Similarly to the Master Niche Topic website, after a site has been up for five weeks, in the sixth week, I try to briefly optimize any page titles and keywords that people are using to find me and then also actually click on an adsense ad ... I will use these keywords to write 5-10 more articles and will either add these articles to this website or to the Master Nich Topic website (remember, its the money website that I care most about) ...
All five of these websites will get optimized after six months looking for keywords that are actually working - these keywords will be used to write more articles and perhaps submit another round of articles to the article directories (this gets us links back to our websites). But I will also look for pages that do not show up as an "exit" page in my logs. If you have cPanel at your webhost, this is easy, there is an entry/exit page report ... obviously, if no one clicked on an adsense ad, then that page will not show up as an exit page ... on these pages, I will quickly replace the adsense ad with a clickbank or commission junction ad ... if I see a keyword that is generating a HUGE amount of traffic, I will usually add a newsletter or free report or series of email lessons on that topic to start building a list ... obviously people are interested in this unique keyword, and so far, it has always been a unique keyword that was never on my original keyword list (note the theme of caring about what people actually are searching for not what I think is important) ... I'm not going to actually write a newsletter
... but that doesn't mean I can't write a series of 10 email messages about the topic, each containing a link back to an article on my website and a link to an affiliate program. And second most important factor, I will take the top 10 keywords, and run them through Google's synonym search command to identify 10-30 related keywords that I am not currently getting any searches for, and I will use these to write 10 or more new articles to post on my Master Niche Topic Website
And I will repeat this optimization "system" after 12 months ...
Most of my sites make a little money during the first 6 weeks (I think Google gives new sites a benefit of the doubt for a little while, after that they have to earn their rankings ) ... they tend to not make a lot during the next four months and then just slowly start increasing steadily each month and usually after their first 12 month update are making pretty good money each month ... and slowly affiliate commissions start aggregating and trickling in about this time as well ... most of my websites make between $600 and $8,000 a year during their second year ...
There is no rocket science ... no top secret tips ... just a slow methodical process ... for me, its a couple hours each day, every day ... and 2-3 weekends where I will just brute force my way through a lot of checklist after checklist items ...
This week I started updating a website that I last touched in November of 2004 ... revenues had dropped to about $900 this year and the website looked old and out of date and I have not added any links to it since probably about the same time ... I will freshen up the look, do a very cautious update of the text on the homepage and main category pages, update the internal linking structure that was not well done the first time ... and I will work on building additional links to it over the next six months.
Will I spend much time on it? Not much ... but it has links to a lot of my other websites that I also want to update, so I am going to start to pick one website a month and "freshen" it up, tweak internal navigation, and freshen up the site with new links to them ...
I don't think this "system" as you put it is all that sexy or exciting ... there is no secret sauce, no magic get rich quick scheme ... but over the long term you will balance out your successful sites, update them, with your not-so-successful sites ... and hopefully when you do something wrong, you will be able to not make that same mistake on the next website. There is no need to worry about the site you supposedly made a mistake on, just use it as a lesson for the next site ...
Most of my sites make it to the top 30 in the search engine rankings for the keywords that "I" think are important ... but the real power is where they end up ranking for the thousands of keywords that real people search for in the search engines ... I heard some staggering statistic that something like 70% of searches conducted on the search engines are unique one of a kind searches? While that sounds a little high to me, it does not surprise me ...
I am always shocked when I ask my wife what words she would type into a search engine to find out XYZ ... she never comes up with the same words I would use ...
Build your sites with quality unique content ... and do it consistently week after week ...
